The Moneyball Man, Scott Hatteberg
Tanner Houck would seemingly always have the ultra-uncomfortable outing in spring training, the one where runs piled up well before he could get to his ideal pitch count.
But then there would be a course correction, usually followed by the exact opposite image for a run of starts.
This season, however, Houck is missing that consistent course correction. And to make matters worse, this is no longer a conversation being had in March. It's May.
Houck turned in yet another hard-to-watch outing, allowing 11 runs over 2 1/3 for the second time this season, this time coming in the Red Sox' 14-2 loss to the Tigers in Detroit.
"This is definitely probably the most lost I've ever been," Houck told reporters "And just not getting the job done, which weighs on me heavily."
This time around, there were just two whiffs on the 26 swings taken off of Houck, with the ineffectiveness coming to a head in the third inning when Detroit managed nine runs before the starter was pulled with just one out in the inning.
For the season, the 2024 American League All-Star now has an 8.04 ERA with opponents managing an OPS of .920 against him (the third-highest of any starter in Major League Baseball). The Red Sox are also now just 2-7 in Houck's starts.
So, now what?
"We will talk about it, of course," Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters when asked about Houck's status in the starting rotation. "He had that good one in Toronto. The last one was OK. And today, there were a lot of pitches in the middle zone. The split, it was up. They put some swings on it, the slider, he wasn't able to get it across home plate and down in the zone to lefties. Just one of those [nights]. We'll have to take a look at it and see what we do."
It would seem that Red Sox need to allow Houck for some sort or reset, particularly since it would seem there are better options to fill that spot at this point.
With Walker Buehler scheduled to pitch next week against the Mets, the rotation seems to have five options without Houck. That's in large part to the emergence of rookie Hunter Dobbins, who is coming off six innings of shutout baseball in Kansas City.
"We’ll talk about it later. I’ve got to take a look at the video, and we'll see what we're gonna do," Cora told reporters. "You know, right now, it's too fresh, it's too quick, so we have to take a look at it and see if it's mechanical, usage, or this is where we’re at, but it’s too soon for that."